A Palestinian doctor refused to leave Gaza. Then he died in Israeli prison

Earlier this month, the war-battered and traumatised Palestinians woke up to another bad news: Dr Adnan Al-Bursh, the known medics who kept treating the injured patients in Gaza even as bombs fell all around him, had been killed while he was in the custody of the Israeli military.

Al-Bursh, the head of the orthopedics department at Gaza’s bombed out Al-Shifa Hospital, died at Israel’s Ofer military prison, which is located in the occupied West Bank and known as the one of the detention centres where Palestinians are being subjected to inhumane conditions.

“He was beaten to death. Ex-prisoners [who stayed with him in the same prison] said he had signs of trauma to the face and head,” said Ghassan Abu Sittah, a British-Palestinian plastic and reconstructive surgeon, who worked alongside Al-Bursh in Gaza hospitals during previous conflicts.

News of Al-Bursh’s death became public only after some of the detainees released on May 2 at the Karam Abu Salem crossing spoke about it to Palestinian NGOs. The Israeli military was quick to confirm the reports that the doctor had indeed died on April 19.

Israelis have refused to release Al-Bursh’s dead body and activists say that’s because Tel Aviv doesn’t want the world to find out that he was tortured to death.

“WHO must demand that his body is returned so that the cause of death can be determined and his family can have peace,” says Abu Sittah. “The lives of 100 health workers in Israeli prisons are now at risk.”

On May 11, CNN published an investigative report based on interviews of whistleblowers who work at the detention centers, detailing how Palestinians arrested from Gaza were being beaten, blindfolded, their hands amputated because of injuries caused by handcuffing and kicked and punched out of vengeance.

Al-Bursh and Dr Ahmed Muhanna, another Palestinian medic, were arrested in December on ‘national security’ grounds during an Israeli military raid on Al Awda hospital in Jabalia camp in Gaza, says Abu Sittah. Since then, there had been no word on their condition until Israel confirmed that Al-Bursh had died at the Ofer prison.

Muhanna is still at the prison, Abu Sittah tells TRT World: “No lawyer no ICRC nothing.” Palestinian taken into custody since October 7 have no legal representation, no contact with anyone outside and “no court process”, he adds.

Turning a blind eye

At least 18 Palestinians from Gaza including Al-Bursh were pronounced dead under Israeli custody, two Palestinian prisoner associations said in a statement on May 2.

Despite overwhelming evidence about torture inside the prisons, leaders in the western world have been reluctant to take any action. Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden’s administration has been busy debating what type of weapons should be supplied to Israel, its indispensable ally.

“Independent investigations into the circumstances surrounding the deaths of Dr Adnan Al-Bursh and others while in Israeli custody are crucial to seeking justice and accountability. Israel must release Dr. Adnan’s body to his family for a dignified burial,” says Milena Ansari, an Israel and Palestine assistant researcher at Human Rights Watch (HRW).

“Impunity fuels more human rights abuses; Israel has for decades mistreated and tortured Palestinian detainees,” Ansari tells TRT World. While Ansari wouldn’t say if Al-Bursh’s death constitutes a war crime, her team has documented “torture and ill treatment of Palestinian detainees”.

A war on the dead

Beyond reports of torture and ill treatment, Tel Aviv has enforced a policy of withholding dead bodies of Palestinian detainees.

Israeli laws allow the government to keep the dead bodies of Palestinians in its custody “as part of its wider counterinsurgency program” and use them “as potential bargaining chips”, said a report published by the Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Center (JLAC) in 2019.

“In 2017, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that the state has no legal basis to withhold bodies. It reversed course in 2019 and upheld the government’s policy to withhold bodies of individuals affiliated with Hamas and those who had killed or wounded Israelis,” says HRW’s Ansari.

But this policy is clearly against the international humanitarian law requirement to “endeavor to facilitate the return of the remains of the deceased upon request of the party to which they belong,” she says.

“Deliberately and unlawfully punishing the families of the deceased, who are not accused of any wrongdoing, constitutes a form of collective punishment, another serious violation of international humanitarian law. It can also amount to cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment of the families of the deceased, a violation of international human rights law.”

Now it’s Al-Bursh’s family going through the torture.

“Until now, we have not received his body and I pray to God he does not get buried in the cemetery of numbers or be dropped off in the south. I want him back here in the north where I can say goodbye to him and see how his last moments were like before he was martyred,” Umm Yazan, Dr Adnan’s wife, told Al Jazeree. She strongly believes that her husband had been tortured to death by Israel.

This Israeli policy has been in place for decades and the dead bodies are often kept in mortuaries or buried in “cemetery of numbers”, says Ansari, who worked for Addameer, a Palestinian prisoners’ organisation, in the past. “There’s one detainee whose body has been withheld since the 90s.”

“It’s oppression, part of the system of domination. Punishment for the families and to deter others,” says Ansari.

Israelis also possibly want to hide evidence of any human rights violations, she says. Addameer previously reported that the practice of withholding bodies prevents investigations, which can shed light on the circumstances of extrajudicial executions.

With the death of Al-Bursh, at least 496 medical sector workers have been killed by the Israeli military in the past 7 months.

More than 34,000 Palestinians, most of whom are women and children, have been killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza.

Rest in Gaza!

Al-Bursh was born in Jabalia in northern Gaza. He studied medicine in Romania and received medical training at hospitals in the UK and Germany.

“He was really a lover of life. He would get up early so that he could swim in the sea before he came in to work. He’d swim even in the winter months. He was very vivacious, always smiling,” says Abu Sittah.

On November 14, 2023, Al-Bursh recorded an emotional video from Al-Shifa Hospital, the biggest medical facility in Gaza. He showed to the world how the hospital was forced to operate without electricity and water.

A vigil was held on May 8 for Al-Bursh in front of King’s College in London where he was trained as an orthopedic surgeon.

“Dr Adnan Al-Bursh was certainly the symbol of Palestinian suffering as well as steadfastness and bravery. He devoted his life to cure people and to treat them,” says Sami al Arian, a prominent Palestinian-American professor.

“He was arrested while doing his duty as an orthopedist surgeon in a hospital during the time of war,” Arian tells TRT World.

He “gave up his life” in order to make sure Palestinians “will not give up their rights”, and continue to stand up against Israeli oppression until they gain their independence, the professor adds.

“He was an excellent doctor and an amazing human being to all kinds of people I have spoken to,” says Kamel Hawwash, a British-Palestinian academic and analyst.

“It just shows that Israelis do not regard Palestinians as human,” Hawwash tells TRT World.

Hawwash says Israel’s refusal to release Al-Bursh's body to his family is “an act of revenge” on Palestinians. He is looking forward to seeing that one day Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders will stand as war criminals at the Hague for their crimes against Palestinians.

Perhaps what Israel doesn’t realise is that despite all its atrocities, Palestinians in Gaza won’t abandon their homes. And Al-Bursh’s life is a testimony to that.

“Having been trained in Germany, Jordan and the UK, he could have easily gotten the job anywhere else in the world. But when I asked him during the 2021 war ‘you know, do you regret coming back?’ and Al-Bursh said he cannot imagine spending his life anywhere else other than Gaza," says Ghassan Abu Sittah.